A Perilous Secret Part 38

It was no wonder. Think of it! The child he adored, yet had parted with to save her from dire poverty, remembered that sad condition to ask for it back again, because of his love that made it sweet to her after all these years of comfort. And of late he had been jealous, and saw, or thought, he had no great place in her heart, and never should have.

Ah, it is a rarity to shed tears of joy! The thing is familiarly spoken of, but the truth is that many pa.s.s through this world of tears and never shed one such tear. The few who have shed them can congratulate William Hope for this blissful moment after all he had done and suffered.

But the sweet girl who so surprised that manly heart, and drew those heavenly tears, had not the key. She was shocked, surprised, distressed.

She burst out crying directly from blind womanly sympathy; and then she took herself to task. "Oh, Mr. Hope! what have I done? Ah! I have touched some chord of memory. Wicked, selfish girl, to distress you with my dreams."

"Distress me!" cried Hope. "These tears you have drawn from me are pearls of memory and drops of balm to my sore, tried heart. I, too, have lived and struggled in a by-gone world. I had a lovely child; she made me rich in my poverty, and happy in my homelessness. She left me--"

"Poor Mr. Hope!"

"Then I went abroad, drudged in foreign mines, came home and saw my child again in you. I need no fairy's wand to revive the past; you are my fairy--your sweet words recall those by-gone scenes; and wealth, ambition, all I live for now, vanish into smoke. The years themselves roll back, and all is once more peace--and poverty--and love."

"Dear Mr. Hope!" said Mary, and put her forehead upon his shoulder.

After a while she said, timidly, "Dear Mr. Hope, now I feel I can trust you with anything." Then she looked down in charming confusion. "My reminiscences--they are certainly a great mystery. But I have another secret to confide to you, if I am permitted."

"Is the consent of some other person necessary?"

"Not exactly necessary, Mr. Hope."

"But advisable."

Mary nodded her head.

"Then take your time," said Hope. He took out his watch, and said: "I want to go to the mine. My right-hand man reports that a ruffian has been caught lighting his pipe in the most dangerous part after due warning. I must stop that game at once, or we shall have a fatal accident. But I will be back in half an hour. You can rest in my office if you are here first. It is nice and cool."

Hope hurried away on his errand, and Mary was still looking after him, when she heard horses' feet, and up came Walter Clifford, escaped from his father. He slipped off his horse directly at sight of Mary, and they came together like steel and magnet.

"Oh, Walter," said Mary, "we are not so unfortunate as we were just now.

We have a powerful friend. Where are you going in such hurry?"

"That is a good joke. Why, did you not order me to the lakes?"

"Oh yes, for Julia's bracelet. I forgot all about that."

"Very likely; but it is not my business to forget your orders."

"Dear Walter! But, dearest, things of more importance have happened since then. We have been insulted. Oh, how we have been insulted!"

"That we have," said Walter.

"And n.o.body knows the truth."

"Not yet."

"And our secret oppresses me--torments me--degrades me."

"Pray don't say that."

"Forgive me. I can't help saying it, I feel it so bitterly. Now, dear, I will walk a little way with you, and tell you what I want you to do this very day; and you will be a darling, as you always are, and consent."

Then Mary told how Mr. Hope had just shown her singular affection; next she reminded him of the high tone Mr. Hope had taken with her father in their hearing. "Why," said she, "there is some mysterious compact about me between papa and him. I don't think I shall ever have the courage to ask him about that compact, for then I must confess that I listened; but it is clear we can depend upon Mr. Hope, and trust him. So now, dear, I want you to indulge your little wife, and let me take Mr. Hope into our confidence."

To Mary's surprise and disappointment, Walter's countenance fell.

"I don't know," said he, after a pause. "Unfortunately it's not Mr.

Bartley only that's against us."

"Well, but, dear," said Mary, "the more people there are against us, the more we need one powerful friend and champion. Now you know Mr. Hope is a man that everybody loves and respects, even your father."

Walter just said, gloomily, "I see objections, for all that; but do as you please."

Mary's tender heart and loving nature couldn't accept an unwilling a.s.sent. She turned her eyes on Walter a little reproachfully. "That's the way to make me do what you please."

"I don't intend it so," said Walter. "When a husband and wife love each other as we do, they must give in to each other."

"That's not what we said at the altar."

"Oh, the marriage service is rather one-sided. I promised very different things to get you to marry me, and I mean to stand by them. If you are impatient at all of this secrecy, tell Mr. Hope."

"I can't now," said Mary, a little bitterly.

"Why not, since I consent?"

"An unwilling consent is no consent."

"Mary, you are too tyrannical. How can I downright like a thing I don't like? I yield my will to yours; there's a certain satisfaction in that. I really can say no more."

"Then say no more," said Mary, almost severely.

"At all events give me a kiss at parting."

Mary gave him that directly, but it was not a warm one.

He galloped away upon his errand, and as she paced slowly back toward Mr.

Hope's office she was a good deal put out. What should she say to Mr.

Hope now? She could not defy Walter's evident wishes, and make a clean breast of the matter. Then she asked herself what was Walter's objection; she couldn't conceive why he was afraid to trust Mr. Hope. It was a perfect puzzle to her.

Indeed this was a most unfortunate dialogue between her and Walter, for it set her mind speculating and guessing at Walter's mind, and thinking all manner of things just at the moment when an enemy, smooth as the old serpent, was watching for an opportunity to make mischief and poison her mind. Leonard Monckton, who had long been hanging about, waiting to catch her alone, met her returning from Walter Clifford, and took off his hat very respectfully to her, and said:

"Miss Bartley, I think."

Mary lifted her eyes, and saw an elderly man with a pale face and dark eyebrows and a cast of countenance quite unlike that of any of her friends. His face repelled her directly, and she said, very coldly:

"Yes, sir; but I have not the pleasure of knowing you."

And she quietly pa.s.sed on.